Valentines or Birthday?

Having a birthday so close to Valentine's Day makes for lots of action. Sometimes the line between the two gets blurry, and who knows which one we're celebrating.

Meg ordered a new oven and over-the-range microwave for our Valentine's Day gifts. They arrived Friday morning (the 13th), and I helped Meg install the microwave on my lunch break (I heaved and hoisted and held the microwave in place while Meg installed it). After work that evening, we tried to install the gas oven, but we had trouble getting the piping installed without the gas leaking. We were going to a party that night at a general contractor's house, so we agreed to hold off and ask the expert what we could do differently.

So that night we celebrated my birthday early by going out to Newport Bay. Since Meg doesn't care for many varieties of fish, I always try and order fish whenever we go out, since it is one of my favorites (thank you Japan for educating me properly). We then went to the party; I played pool with a friend for a few demoralizing games, but otherwise hung out on the couch. We got the right advice (and some supplies) from our contractor friend, and put off installing the range until Saturday afternoon (after the Oregon birthday party). We also bought some new piping supplies at Lowes, but we couldn't get some of the connectors to work. We eventually put the old ones back on, and with the special piping sealant goop, we achieved a tight connection with no gas leakages. Hooray! With Meg's fabulous knack for doing-it-yourself, we saved $300. I found it funny that Meg wasn't so much worried about having to pay someone to install the range if we couldn't fix the leak; she was worried about not being able to bake me a cake for my birthday.

On Valentine's evening, we ate at Adam's Ribs--one of my favorite places to eat. It's not a formal or romantic place, but we didn't have to worry about reservations or having to wait or not getting enough to eat. Afterwards, we walked around Salem Centre for about an hour before heading to Hudson Hall (on Willamette University's campus) for a Salem Chamber Orchestra concert, with special guest conductor and pianist, Xu Zhong. Our seats were in the second row (perhaps not ideal for an orchestra concert--but they were still the cheapest seats in the house), so we were able to witness up-close how the music flowed through Mr. Zhong. He was simply amazing. He didn't just play the music--it flowed through him, it was part of him. Meg enjoyed the show as well. We finished the night eating ice cream at Baskin Robbins.

Even though my birthday fell on President's Day this year, my employer does not recognize it as one of its official holidays, so I went to work in the morning. When I returned to my car that night at the vanpool parking lot, it was filled with balloons and Aaron-made decorations. The boys gave me DVD sets for both Star Wars series (the prequels and the trilogy), and Meg found a cool book that presented the entire history of Oregon Ducks football. The boys also wanted to spend $50 and buy me The Twilight Princess game for our Game Cube. They didn't realize we had already bought that game a while ago and just hadn't brought it out yet (we were saving it for when the baby arrives in April), but they were adamant, so she broke it out and we've all been enjoying it a little each day.

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